Rep. Carlos Trujillo draws protests over anti-immigrant bill

Immigrant rights groups are not only angry that there is new legislation in Tallahassee that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to stay in Florida after they get deportation orders. They are also upset that the bill’s champion is a Cuban-American from Miami.

And they are comparing Rep. Carlos Trujillo (R-Doral) to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who drew fire after saying that Mexican immigrants were thieves and rapists.

Trujillo has introduced House Bill 9, which would make it a first degree felony for a person who knows they have an order of deportation to continue living in the state of Florida. Violations are punishable by up to 30 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.

Palm Coast Senator Travis Hutson filed the companion bill in the Senate (SB 118). But, you know, we might expect that from someone whose name is Travis Hutson, who, by the way, is also sponsoring another bill that would enhance existing penalties for crimes committed by undocumented or illegal immigrants.

We don’t expect that from someone named Carlos Trujillo.

“Why is Representative Trujillo putting on the same shoes as Donald Trump?” asked Rudy Perez, President of the Homestead-based immigrant rights group WeCount, which took a busload of activists to Trujillo’s Doral office Sunday to join dozens of protesters.

“He is from an immigrant family like many of us, but he is proposing laws that would criminalize immigrants,” Perez said.

If the bill passes, even Cubans who get orders of deportation but do not return to Cuba would be guilty of a felony, said activist Natalia Jaramillo. who has a blog about immigration rights.

Trujillo told Political Cortadito that the activists read the bill wrong and that it would only apply to immigrants who re-enter the country after being deported. It’s already a federal offense, this just codifies it into state law.

“It targets people who have been legally deported, people who have been through years and years of court hearings, people who have been afforded every opportunity of due process and decide, after they are legally deported, that ‘I could care less. I’m showing up again,'” Trujillo said.

“Some of these people are very, very dangerous people,” Trujillo said, citing the same stories Trump embraces about the murder of an Arizona family and the now famous murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by a man who had previously been deported five times. “They are not isolated incidents. There are hundreds of stories. A lot of them are gang members and or drug dealers.

“You can’t deny the fact that some of them are here to run drugs and commit crimes,” he said, sounding very much like Trump, indeed. “Federal immigration reform isn’t working.”

Trujillo told Ladra the bill is an effort to preempt any move — and he says one may be forthcoming — to make Miami a sanctuary city or Miami-Dade a sanctuary county that does not cooperate with federal authorities on immigration matters. While there is no official law declaring Miami a “safe haven” for illegal immigrants — not like San Francisco — it has long been considered a sanctuary city and county because local authorities tend to sympathize with their plight.

The representative also said that none of immigration activists had reached out to him to discuss the merits of the proposed law or their concerns.

“They don’t understand what the bill is about,” he said.

“So disrespectful,” Jaramillo said. “The reasons for someone to stay after having an order of deportation and the reasons for someone to return after being deported are exactly the same — to be with your children and your family.”

Julio Calderon was a minor when he and his family received a final order of deportation. “We didn’t have a lawyer. My dad sent a letter to the judge asking for a new court date, but they didn’t accept it,” said Calderon, a native of Honduras who is now an FIU student. Calderon, who was protesting with the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), has a final order of deportation.

“As someone who is trying to make a difference, should I go to prison for 30 years because my family was afraid to go to court? A lot of the unaccompanied minors are also afraid to go to court and are getting orders of removal,” Calderon added. “Is Representative Trujillo willing to send them to prison for 30 years?”

Other groups joining the protest from 3 to almost 6 p.m. Sunday include DREAMers Moms, Homestead Equal Rights for All, Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, Miami Worker Center, Students Working for Equal Rights, United Families, and Women Working Together USA.

They say the bill will hurt hard-working decent families more than criminals who intend to come back no matter what and will take their chances despite the threat of additional jail time and fines. They don’t plan on being caught. And jail in the U.S. is better than what they have at home for some of them.

The protesters knew that there would be nobody in the office on a Sunday. “But the objective was for the community that lives in that area to see that Trujillo is not doing something good for our community,” Jaramillo said.

There’s also an ongoing twitter campaign where people hashtag #AltoTrujillo or #StopTrujillo with photos holding placards that protest the bill.

The Million Mask March started off as a single protest in Washington D.C. in 2013. It has since grown in to what has been dubbed the largest mass protest in human history with over 500 simultaneous protest around the world. Also with countless nation and world wide street actions on a weekly and monthly basis including such things as clothing drives, street protests, feeding the homeless and in some cases traveling to help those in times of need. To remind the world that fairness, Justice, and freedom are more than just words.

Someone should remind Rep. Trujillo that matters of immigration are strictly federal and the states have no say in who is admitted to the country and who is excluded. The state cannot enforce a state law criminalizing a federally designated status. There are federal laws against returning to the country illegally and, because Congress did not confer jurisdiction on the states to enforce it, it has preempted the states from enacting laws in this area.

Agree completely with Steve Cody; someone needs to give Rep. Trujillo a lesson in our federal system of government. Furthermore, since when does a person of Cuban heritage have the moral standing — let alone los cojones — to initiate anti-immigrant legislation? Hasn’t his mother told him the story of how they got here, most probably by way of the liberal US immigration policy that benefits ONLY Cuban! Rep. Trujillo should rot in hell for this action.

I see the Axis of Lying about immigration is in full force again. As strategic as it is to lawless people to conflate illegal with legal immigrant, there is a difference. Just as long as you don’t use the Obama dictionary, you’ll be good to go searching anywhere on the Internet for clarification. Might I suggest onelook.com?

I applaud the representative regarding his obvious concern for the laws of the United States and pre-emptiving any move towards further exercerbating the concerns of legal residents, who he is tasked to serve, by having the gravitas to listen to many of his constituents of a multitude of nationalities (yes, I’ve sat at a citizen’s swearing in ceremony at the Freedom Tower), who keep asking “why does my wife, mother, daughter have to wait because she’s obeying the law?

Comparing Representative Trujillo to Trump is disingenuous and an obvious attempt to behave in the same manner as the egotistical self-servant does – as a character assassin. The irony.

Oh, if you are going to criticize Representative Trujillo make sure you put the onus of his legislative decisions on the right source, WE THE PEOPLE. Take my name and call me any name you want, because, I’m the one responsible.

When I wanted to legally bring a Russian immigrant family member to the USA I had to prove that I would supply health care, housing, food, etc. Immigrants and illegal immigrants (not undocumented) would be cautioned to remember the generosity of my country and stop dividing its people.

As a U.S. citizen, it is appalling that these immigrants choose to ignore federal law and still want the empathy of legal Florida residents. If you can’t follow U.S. law, why should they be given the gift of immigrating to the United States of America?

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